


Knight of Blood

by force



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Bloodbending, Evil Karkat, F/M, M/M, Multi, Will add more tags and characters as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:38:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/force/pseuds/force
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Karkat is fatally wounded, Dave desperately hopes any Quest Bed will do. Using Roxy's Void bed does reincarnate the troll, but also twists him into something terribly wrong.</p><p>Work in progress. On pause. Hopefully I'll finish it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. It had all happened way too fast. They had waited three years to get here— how could it have been ruined in the first five minutes? And Bec Noir hadn’t even caught up to them yet.

Maybe in those three years, he’d softened up. Maybe he’d forgotten what it was like to play this godawful game. The game that would destroy a planet without promise of creating a new one. It would have no problem taking out a player, especially one as vulnerable as Karkat.

Karkat had no dreamself. If he died today, he would die forever. It didn’t matter that this death wasn’t heroic, and sure as fucking hell wasn’t just. He may have been a whiny asshole sometimes, but Dave was not going to let the troll die.

And Jade… of all people, it was her. There was something deeply wrong with her. Her dark skin, her black glow. He didn’t even have time to pull out his sword when Karkat fell to his knees. He hadn’t even known anything had happened at the time. A flash of green, and everything changed. It was completely disorienting. Had Jade zapped them here? 

After the dizzying brightness of the flash had worn off, more quickly for him with his sunglasses on then for the others— except Kanaya, who he saw picking Rose off the ground, Dave stood up to take in his surroundings. That was when Dave felt a grip around his ankle.

The strength in Karkat’s hand weakened almost immediately after it made contact with Dave’s leg. That’s about the point when Dave shat himself. 

"Dave! Rose! Kar— oh my God…," an unmistakably excited voice behind Dave cut itself off. He turned around to see John staring down at Karkat with his hand cupped over his mouth. He had no time to be excited. The blond knelt down next to Karkat. The troll was still gripping his ankle the best he could, holding onto it like Dave was life itself.

Karkat’s blood was leaking across the ground quickly, spilling out of his stomach. There was a giant rip in the Cancer’s black shirt, revealing a gash that moved as he breathed. With each breath, the wound opened a bit more, showing much too publicly the alien’s torn guts.

"What— What happened?!" John gasped, kneeling next to Karkat as well. Terezi was the next to crawl over, her face blank with shock. 

"He’s going to die," she hissed. Dave said nothing for a moment, then scooped Karkat into his arms. The troll hadn’t spoken, but he was awake. He stared up at Dave in confusion, as did everyone else.

It was Kanaya who asked what he was doing. He told her that he was going to find a quest bed.

"We left his Quest Bed behind in our session!" Terezi yelled, throwing her arms up as she did. As if he didn’t know that. He pushed himself into the air, hovering a few feet above everyone.

"Rose," He demanded, hoping she could still use her Seer powers when she was intoxicated. It seemed this experience was a sobering one for her. She stared up at him. "Which way?"

She looked around, blinking and trying to focus. She seemed confused, though, and this was taking too long. “Rose!” She bit her lip and quickly pointed behind him, then held tightly onto Kanaya, burying her face into her shoulder.

Dave took off without hesitation, leaving Terezi and John staring after him.


	2. Chapter 2

This was taking too long. He wanted to turn around and look for it, but no. He kept speeding straight ahead, where Rose had pointed.

"You’re crazy."

Dave almost stopped when he heard Karkat speak. He thought he had passed out. He would have assumed he had already died if he couldn’t feel him breathing. 

"Maybe. But we’re almost there."

"We’ve been flying for ten minutes."

"Your bleeding is slowing."

Karkat looked blankly up at Dave, who was staring straight ahead, refusing to look anywhere else. “That’s because I’m shutting down.”

Dave kept flying. He said nothing. Pretended he didn’t hear it. Karkat grimaced, wishing he would just stop. This pointless hope was worse than inevitable death. Why couldn’t he just accept it and move on?

"I am going to DIE in your ARMS!" he screeched. 

"No you’re not."

"Yes, I AM!"

Dave clenched his jaw, keeping his face blank. “Fine, die in my arms if you have to. I’m still gonna try.” Karkat let his head fall back, too tired to keep it up.

"You asshole," he whispered. Why couldn’t he just let him bleed out with his friends? Instead he had to endure holding on, struggling to stay awake, while the wind whipped across his face. 

"I see it."

"What?" Karkat lifted his head again, twisting it to the side. There it was, on top of some glorified pile of rocks. The stone slab that would—

—do absolutley nothing. It wasn’t his. It was for a Hero of Void, which he wasn’t. 

"You’ll be disappointed," Karkat told him. Dave rushed toward it faster than before, building up speed. Karkat winced and curled over to protect his stomach from the wind. The bed drew closer, growing it seemed. As it grew, his visioned blackened. A dark haze took up all the light in the world.

Karkat felt the hard slab beneath him as he was lowered onto it. He supposed that he could let go now. His breathing slowed, his mouth hung open, his body relaxed. Let go. 

\- - - -

Dave watched as his friend’s breathing finally stopped. His eyes were still open, looking at— at nothing. Who was he kidding? All this death bullshit. 

Still, he felt the desire to close them. The bright yellow now seemed flat, much in contrast with the way Karkat’s eyes usually glared. Never with so much apathy. He didn’t close them, though. Trolls probably didn’t do that. 

Nothing seemed to be happening. Dave let out a small sigh and turned around. As he lifted off to return to his friends, he was interrupted by a horrible, strained screaming behind him.

Dave whipped around, instinctively drawing out his sword. Karkat was floating over his corpse, now decked out completely in his brown and red god tier clothes. The Knight of Blood had risen, but there was something wrong. 

The troll was curled over, his arms wrapped around his sides. His face was tightened into an awful grimace, and he screamed for as long as his lungs let him. Dave rushed over, putting his hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, what the fuck? Are you okay?" Dave asked in frightened concern. Karkat opened one of his eyes. His iris was filled in, a bright red.

"My… body! I’m burning!"

"You’re not burning, you’re fine! Just—"

"My blood!" Karkat grabbed Dave’s hand, digging his nails into it in his pain, "I can feel it… every fucking capillary… It has… to stop!" Karkat started to twitch, almost writhing in the air. Dave watched in confusion, helpless. He tried to back away from Karkat, but before he could react, he felt a tug on his sword.

Karkat had grabbed the blade, and in a fit in desperation, plunged it through his stomach.

The sound was wet, metal against flesh. Karkat pushed it in further, with Dave’s hand still on the handle, staring in horrified shock. Karkat coughed violently, blood shooting out of his mouth, some of it landing on the blond’s pale visage. 

The troll pushed until he could feel the sword protrude from his back. The blade slid forward, bright red blood dripping onto the ground.

There was pain, undeniable pain. What Karkat noticed as he he gritted his teeth through the pain, however, was relief. The burning had stopped. He could feel the horrible rush of his blood spill from his wound. And with it, he felt energy. He raised a hand, candy red pooling in his grey palm.

His finger twitched, and with it, blood droplets jumped into the air. He moved his hand more, and as he did, the blood around him floated upwards. He grinned through his grimace.

"I… can control it…." Those four words cost him another hacking burst of blood from his mouth, "Knight… of Blood."

Then he fell, pulling the sword from Dave’s grip as he did so. His body landed on top of his first corpse, his expression slackening as he died off once again.

Dave stared down at him, mouth agape. What in all of hell? What the fucking hell? What just HAPPENED? And WHY?

He would have left then, but he knew Karkat would come back. He was a god tier now. Suicide couldn’t kill him.


End file.
